#WARCOOKIE

My Forsaken ladies: Noski, Elsabeth, and Viatrix

Disciplinary Action put together a Warcraft Christmas Cookie exchange, and since I was looking for an excuse to make cookies anyway, I signed up.  Rather than exchanging actual cookies, recipes were exchanged, and I got a molasses spice cookie recipe to make and Warcraft up this weekend.  Unbeknownst to me, my cookies were going to be sponsored by the plague.  (No, seriously, I have some kind of sinus plague going on.)

Given the levels of misery that were to be had this weekend, the extent of my Warcraftification of the cookies was mostly limited to OMGSPRINKLES.

OMG SPRINKLES

Alliance cookies in the oven

Horde cookies waiting to go in the oven

 

Alliance cookies out of the oven

Horde & Alliance cookies

There, ah, may have been some PVP involved.  As you can see, the Alliance got raided while waiting for the Horde to get out of the oven.  There's also a bit of a faction imbalance; there were 17 Alliance cookies to start, versus 19 Horde cookies.  Given that the recipe estimated that I would get 24, and I got 36, obviously Gramma's indoctrination of proper cookie size is hard to shake.

Patch love

Aimed Shot is hitting and critting hard enough I was cackling at the target dummy. In fact, it's hitting hard enough I'm finding it worth opening on mobs while soloing - because if it crits, it's sometimes half their health.

One of the paragons of hunter-dom, Frostheim over at WHU, wrote a guide on using Aimed post-buff.

The Chimera Shot and Arcane Shot buffs were also nice - I'm sure the Kill Shot one was, too, but usually by that time in the fight I'm watching things besides my crit numbers. Overall I saw a 2-3k increase in DPS in Baradin Hold without gear (or even rotation) changes.

(The other thing that has made me giggle this week was watching my warrior's new Toxic Wasteling eat critters. She has the best holiday boss drop luck - Headless Horseman's mount and the Wasteling. If only I could have sent them over to Dusk. >.<)

June, argh

June has been a busy month, and it's not even friggin' done yet. The first three weeks basically went vacation, Kingslayer, conference. I found Sindragosa to be a much more difficult fight than the Lich King was. Maybe that's just me, though. (I'm so glad I switched to rocket boots.) I'm still toting around Bloodsail Admiral from Memorial Day weekend, though.

There's been mild drama in the guild, but it's not so much of the volcanic argument type as the slowly simmering personality conflicts eventually pushing someone to go. It really sucks for those of us, officers or members, who like all the people involved. I don't like feeling as though I've disappointed other friends by not being able to keep all of us together in the guild. But at the same time, I learned to accept several things a while back that have helped me deal with it.

• I can't fix everything. Not every problem has a win/win solution.
• I can't make people like each other. Some personalities just clash, and not everyone is willing to deal with someone they just don't get along with.
• I can't change other people. People have to change themselves.

One of the hardest things is that some people don't recognize that they are part of the problem. They expect everyone else to conform to their expectations or standards and don't realize that maybe it's their expectations or standards that are part of the problem. If there are problems, I generally assume that I'm contributing to them somehow, and look at what I've done or how I've interacted with people to see if there's anything I can do to remedy the problem.

I've had a lot of friends leave the guild over the past four and a half years, but I think, in an MMO, that just happens. Their goals shift, and they want other things out of the game. Or there's someone that they're just tired of dealing with. And it's a game; there are ways to keep in touch and continue to play with the people you like spending time with even if you're not in the same guild anymore. People shouldn't stay in a guild if it's going to make them unhappy.

My rogue just finished the holidays for the Violet Protodrake, and my priest should finish up tonight or tomorrow, depending how much time I have if I'm raiding tonight. Last week the guild downed Putricide in 25 for the first time, which bumps us up to 8/12 for 25s. (I think I'm personally still at 6/12.) Hopefully I'll get to see Princes on 25 sometime - I've managed to solo-juggle kinetic bombs in 10s twice now.

#93

I think he looks rather sassy at that angle, don't you?

Yes, he's 310%, and I owe my guildies lots of props for the help over the past year - especially with Halloween and Brewfest; I can't remember at the moment whether the others required groups.

I also picked up the pink baby elekk this morning (#92 for small pets).

And, ahem, I was made guild master last night. Our GM of almost five years is crazy busy with school, and won't be able to play for much of the next... 6 months? year? Sad to see him go, even temporarily. We gave him a send-off in Booty Bay with Pirate Day going.

Second time I've inherited an online group - I got made leader of my clan on the MUD I used to play on after the previous leader quit playing. Hopefully I don't screw this up.